In Cezanne’s celebrated painting, Leda and the Swan, we see the beautiful, naked young nymph, Leda, being pulled or perhaps pecked by the god Zeus who has taken the form of a swan. Drawing on the previous works of Correggio, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and many other male artists dating back to the 3rd c. CE, Cezanne recounts the mythological tale of Zeus who was so aroused by Leda’s beauty, he portrayed himself as a swan fleeing a bird of prey, sat beside her and raped her. Male violence against a woman wrapped in a piece of ‘fine art’ - is it still a beautiful painting?
Catherine McCormack’s magnificent book, Women in the Picture, is packed with similar art history insights as she guides the reader through a gallery of well-loved artworks and explores how “men have had almost exclusive access to creating our cultural images” and therefore have controlled “the archetypal constructions of womanhood.”
Although grounded in art history, this is not a stuffy, academic tome. Catherine writes with a passionate, energetic voice that makes you feel like you’re standing right next to her as she points her finger to where “Slasher Mary” drove a cleaver into Velázquez’s painting, The Rokeby Venus in protest of the imprisonment of suffragettes, or where Picasso painted his penis purple as one half of his young mistress, Marie-Thérèse’s face in his painting The Dream. From Venus to Mothers, to Maidens & Dead Damsels, then Monstrous Women, Catherine gallops through the archetypes of womanhood as presented to us over the ages through fine art and craft, and now through social media and advertising. As she says,
“…until recently, men have had almost exclusive access to creating our cultural images, they’ve also been able to control the archetypal constructions of womanhood.”
I particularly appreciated Catherine’s discussion of revered yet problematic artists such as Picasso and Gauguin who both objectified and abused women, casting them aside once the women (girls in Gauguin’s case) had met the men’s artistic and sexual needs. She raises the still very present conundrum society has with whether it’s possible to separate the art from the artist. Does Picasso’s ‘genius’ absolve him from the abuse his lovers endured? Does Gauguin’s work still deserve its place in art history knowing he had several sexual relationships with indigenous girls under the age of fifteen? No. In both cases, no, it doesn’t. I’m okay with both Picasso’s work and Gauguin’s work being locked away in the museum storage unit, they’ve had their time. I’m tired of seeing work that reflects how “the female body has been exploited to shape ideas about male genius and creativity.” There are plenty of women artists whose work has never been viewed in public; works from non-binary and trans artists that have been created for Private View only - time to bring it all out into the light.
In the final chapter of the book titled, Monstrous Women, Catherine McCormack discusses the work of several feminist artists and how they subvert classical art’s widely accepted archetypes of women. It is within this chapter that I place my current body of work. My anti-patriarchal, feminist values have been bubbling under the surface of my art practice for several years, but the last year or so have floated to the surface of the canvas. From screaming, howling women to disgruntled portraits and self-portraits, my art practice pushes back against what Catherine calls, “the lobotomized glassy stare” that has been and still is the predominant portrayal of a woman’s face.
“…monsters give us a new way of looking, because they themselves look head on at the male gaze and disrupt it.” - Catherine McCormack
It’s been interesting to witness other people’s reactions to my portraiture work. It’s noticeable that the “pretty” images receive more ‘likes’ than the angry ones. Other women have told me they thought it was “indulgent” that I spent a year on self-portraiture - full disclosure, I thought that too when I started. But as Catherine says at the end of her wonderful book, portraying myself as a female monster, ie NOT complying with patriarchal rules,
“…offer[s] us the power and freedom of being more than one thing, of ambiguity. They allow us to be unruly, not easily categorised or contained, to live outside of the roles or behaviours that racist, patriarchal capitalism has set out for women.”
I AM HERE FOR THAT!
This book is a must-read for all artists working towards the full liberation of womxn in society. I think it’s important that artists study at least a smidge of art history to understand how their work sits within the centuries of human self-expression, and for me, the book gave me confidence that I’m creating important work, both for myself and contemporary art as a movement. I want to move art forward, not take it back to the days of expressionless, hairless, marble-skinned Venus. I feel a responsibility to do this. As women’s rights are rolled back in the US and violence against womxn rises across the planet, “monster” artist-women must depict a world in which women have self-determination in all aspects of their lives. Catherine is correct when she states that what we as a society view as art, is often adopted by advertisers and social media as an identity that is “sold back as the default and normal version of how we are encouraged to see ourselves within our social groups”. As artists, let’s offer new ways of seeing and being seen as women.
Until next time.
JC
RESOURCES
Women in the Picture, Catherine McCormack, Icon Books, ISBN 978-178578-695-2
Read about the Leda and the Swan myth HERE
Read about ‘Slasher Mary’ ( suffragette Mary Richardson) HERE
THIS is a good article about Gauguin, and THIS one talks about Picasso’s troubling relationship with women
Read about the work of feminist artist Hannah Wilke HERE
Listen to Catherine talk about her work on this podcast (click image)
Oh, I'm going to have to read that book! Can't help but wonder what life would be like with Picasso and Gauguin nowadays... would they be portrayed as "Harvey Weinsteins" - using and abusing womxn to further their careers/agendas? Did all those girls/womxn feel like they couldn't have a voice against their abusers back then? How awful.
No. More.
A few years back I did 52 Portraits in 52 weeks -- a challenge I came up with. Most of them were women. And yes, some were the glassy eyed stare and other were I think what is rudely described as "resting b$tch face". In other words, I'm not smiling beatifically 'cause I don't want to... I'm going to have to go back and see how many are one versus the other.